


These Troubled Times

by not_poignant



Series: The Fae Tales Verse - canon extras [3]
Category: Fae Tales - not_poignant, Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Original Work
Genre: Aftercare, Angst, BDSM, Compulsion, Dark, Dark Agenda, Depression, Flogging, M/M, Mind Control, Nonhuman Characters, POV Nonhuman, PTSD, Politics, Power Dynamics, Power Imbalance, Power Play, Unseelie Court, handjob, slow seduction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-11
Updated: 2014-11-17
Packaged: 2018-02-24 23:56:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2601050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_poignant/pseuds/not_poignant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years have passed since the first time Augus bedded the Raven Prince, years that he has spent living in the Unseelie Court, prey to increasing tensions and the burden of oncoming dark times. When the Raven Prince approaches him and asks him to do something new - even violent - Augus discovers he will not come away from the request unscathed. (Sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/973180">A Broken Feather, Straightened</a>).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note re: warning - there is NO rape in these two chapters, but there is a moment of significant noncon nonetheless in an impromptu BDSM scene (inflicted upon Augus), hence the warning.
> 
> The translations for the Welsh can be found in the end-notes.
> 
> (Thanks all for reading, and if you enjoyed it please consider leaving kudos! All comments are *really* appreciated).

Troubled times had crept their way into what had once been the most peaceful Unseelie Court of any reign.

Augus Each Uisge spread himself thin between duties. He worked as a diplomat, he tutored with Fluri the mouse-maiden and the Raven Prince himself, he helmed the Wild Hunt when the Raven Prince was too riddled with apathy to do it himself; which was often. Augus had hidden, vengeful plans nearing fruition, at a time when he wished only to offer the troubled Raven Prince some form of succour.

Panic, then vindictive rage still found him the few times of year that he managed anything like sleep. When he didn’t wish to offer the Raven Prince solace, he curled around the idea of laying waste to the life he’d made for himself.

He sat, now, at a long wooden table within the inner halls of the Unseelie Court, the wood itself a pale grey, harvested from the black oaks of Borth. Before him, pinned to the wall, a large piece of spelled parchment. The scrawled lettering of the Raven Prince could be made to fall away with the wave of a Mage’s hand. But as Augus was not a Mage, for him, the writing looked as fixed as ever. Upon it, the Raven Prince quietly worked out strategies. Augus had no idea why the Raven Prince even wanted him here. Though the room itself could easily fit fifty individuals – more, if some were willing to stand – the Raven Prince often worked alone, or in concert with a single War General.

‘I did not think the Nightingale would come to this, during my reign,’ the Raven Prince said to the parchment, though he meant the precise words for Augus.

Augus couldn’t tear his eyes away from the Nightingale’s name penned in black ink – and he said nothing at all.

Years had passed since the first time Augus bedded the Raven Prince. Years had passed since the tenth time, or the eleventh – Augus had counted them all and knew that the Raven Prince had sought him out precisely fifteen and a half times for that manner of company. Their encounters were detached experiments for the Raven Prince. Augus had seen him hungry, wanting, curious, aloof. Had seen him arch his back and gasp so hoarsely that his throat had been sore afterwards and Augus had tended him with herbs. Had seen him murmur absent phrases in languages alien to him, Augus disturbed by the thought that they might be stolen from races who no longer knew how to speak them.

For the Raven Prince supped on language and words, even as Augus supped on human flesh.

A decade had passed since the first time the Raven Prince stood in Augus’ room, black eyes inquisitive, a hesitancy quickly eroded by Augus’ patient, careful touches.

‘You are always quiet when I say his name,’ the Raven Prince said, turning. He looked – for all that he was a tense bird wanting to fly away at any moment – relaxed enough, but Augus knew he was disapproving.

He wanted to say – ‘You know how I feel about the Nightingale, my Prince.’

But the Raven Prince didn’t know, exactly, how Augus felt. He had likely guessed it, but if that were true, then surely the Raven Prince would care…more?

He said nothing, turned to look down at the sheaf of parchments before him. He sorted them carefully, and then half-smiled, the gesture cynical and intended for him alone. The Raven Prince held not the same affection for him that Augus held for the Raven Prince. Augus was designed to be an effective diplomat, a pretty and functional bauble. He was ornamentation. He knew all this. And yet to see one of the most powerful beings he had ever known reduced to quick, soft exhales, biting his lower lip when he came, just as he bit it when he was hunting and his dagger found its mark…?

He was a fool. Give him a jester’s hat, a false sceptre, and it would all be the same. An amusing trickster so the King could satisfy his needs.

His hopes of winnowing his way into the Raven Prince’s heart and confidences weren’t exactly shattered, everyone spoke of how he was closer to the Raven Prince than almost anyone – but nor had he found the exact vulnerabilities he’d been seeking.

The Nightingale had returned two years ago. Visiting the Unseelie Court, taking tea with the Raven Prince, even as Augus made an excuse, disappeared, and stood – still and trembling – in his own room, staring blankly at the wall for hours. All while his Prince and that monster had _tea._

Mourner nightingales – the dust grey birds with searing red eyes and a beautiful, heartbreaking song – followed Augus wherever he went when he left the Unseelie Court. He tried to kill them all. He wondered if the Nightingale could feel it when one of his tiny avatars was destroyed. He wondered if the Nightingale even cared.

‘You will tell me about him, one day,’ the Raven Prince said, sighing.

Augus’ cynical half-smile widened.

‘I do not think I’m the wisest choice for this consultation, Your Majesty,’ Augus said, to the parchment. ‘I mean you no disrespect, of course.’

It had been two years since the Raven Prince had last lain with him. So it was a shock when he felt a strong, lithe hand curl around his shoulder. He told himself he didn’t flinch at the touch, that he was far more self-composed than that, but it had been unexpected, and he had not been paying attention.

‘You are slipping from my grasp,’ the Raven Prince said, fingers squeezing.

‘Am I?’ Augus said, looking up, face composed. ‘How so? I am yours, my liege.’

‘Are you?’ the Raven Prince said, standing so close that Augus could smell the rich musky bird-scent of his feathered cloak. Could see faint wrinkles in the Raven Prince’s silver button-up shirt. Augus’ eyes stilled on the silver necklace with its bone and crystal charms dangling on his sternum, then met the Raven Prince’s eyes once more.

‘Of course,’ Augus said, meeting his eyes, taking in a face that was aristocratic in bearing, though less refined than his own.

But the Raven Prince said nothing, knowing how to use words and their absence, and Augus knew he was expected to say something else. He searched about, found a play he’d been saving for the right moment. Was this the right time?

‘Your Majesty, it has been two years since you’ve come to my rooms, seeking…whatever it is that you seek within my arms. I have simply wished to give you the space that you require.’

‘The epitome of respectfulness,’ the Raven Prince said, eyebrows rising. ‘That is of course what I have always associated with you.’

Augus laughed under his breath and looked down at the hand on his shoulder. In all this time it hadn’t left. The Raven Prince was far more forward with touch than he used to be – with Augus, anyway – but it had still been months since the Raven Prince had reached for him.

‘Do you have need of my other services?’ Augus said. He lifted his hand to place it on the Raven Prince’s hand, but the Raven Prince let go just as their fingers touched. ‘No?’

‘I have need of something,’ the Raven Prince said, gaze going far, looking miles beyond the Court itself. ‘But I do not know what it is, as yet.’

‘If it is something I can assist you with, you know that I will.’

‘Perhaps,’ the Raven Prince said, offering him a quick, sharp smile before walking regally from the room, each step placed as precisely as his words. The door closed behind him, and Augus was left alone, staring at a chicken-scratch name on the parchment pinned to the wall, his fingers curling as a black, oozing hatred seethed within.

*

Augus ran.

He volunteered himself for a diplomatic assignment to mediate between a growing population of nokken and the stromkarl who were fighting back, creating a civil war between two previously peaceable freshwater fae nations.

He was gone for months, living with creatures who stirred his territorial leanings, who were both sides intelligent and capable of lively discourse, who wished for peace without too much sacrifice and challenged Augus’ skills as he sought it with them.

In the end, seven months passed and the nokken and stromkarl both had their peace; while Augus had none at all.

*

The evening of his return, the Raven Prince entered his room without knocking first, catching Augus in a state of undress – still wearing his long, calvary twill pants that he’d worn travelling home. He was bare-chested, his mane sticking to his skin, constantly weeping water. Months spent with fellow freshwater spirits had left him far healthier than he’d been for years.

The Raven Prince stood without his feathered cloak, in only a plain black button-up shirt, long sleeved, a sharp collar. He wore pants that fit tightly to long, limber legs, and boots that went midway up his shins, tooled with subtle feather motif. No matter what he wore, Augus found him becoming. He knew the skin that lurked behind the fabric. He knew the birthmarks on the right-hand side of his ribs, the tiny overlapping feathers at the back of his neck that were hidden by his scruffy black hair. He knew, even, how the inside of his elbows would taste if licked them, the intonation of breath that would follow.

‘I find myself curious,’ the Raven Prince began, even as he looked over Augus’ body freely, his lips tensing in appreciation. ‘I want something different from you. It is a crass thing, but my mind turns it over, regardless. Years ago now, you showed me some of the tools of your trade. You’ll recall?’

‘You were disgusted,’ Augus said, taking his mane in his fingers and settling it at his back, where it could cling there and tickle his skin less than it did when it rested on his chest. ‘My liege, you do not want me to hurt you, surely?’

But Augus very much wanted to inflict pain on the Raven Prince, to hear him gasp with discomfort and pleasure both. In the past ten years he’d increased the stimulation he’d offered the Raven Prince. He’d pushed, carefully, to see what he could take, where he might bend. The Raven Prince had known, had consented to it, and Augus had delighted in seeing his pale brow crease with sensory overload, as pain and pleasure had entwined and pleasure had won out in the end.

They had never used tools. Augus had only ever used his body to achieve his ends. He’d marked the expression on the Raven Prince’s face well the day that he’d shown him whips, chains, quirts and more. He’d considered it a closed door.

Then again, it was the Raven Prince, who went wherever he wasn’t welcome – which held as true for his own self-exploration as it did for the rest of his life.

The Raven Prince approached him, his booted feet thudding dully on the carpeted floor of Augus’ own white, grey and olive rooms. Augus held still, watched as the Raven Prince reached up with clever fingers and placed them on his chest, looking down at the skin beneath. He splayed his fingers and Augus did not bother to keep his breathing even, knowing that the Raven Prince would appreciate the hitch in his inhale.

‘What is it that I might help you with, my Prince?’ Augus said, voice far softer than usual.

 _‘Ach ‘n arddun,’_ the Raven Prince replied, hands moving down his skin. ‘ _Arogleui da, Augus.’_

Augus shivered to hear his native language spoken, reaching up and pressing his hands over the Raven Prince’s hands. He wasn’t sure that the Raven Prince ever spoke Welsh with anyone else like this, he hoped not, because it was intimate hearing the Raven Prince form his voice around those syllables – both of them sharing the language of their homeland. Augus felt dry skin beneath his fingers and kept his touch light, not wanting to imprison, only to reciprocate.

 _‘Ac rydych, Tywysog,’_ Augus murmured.

‘Am I?’ the Raven Prince said, stepping even closer, leaving little space between them. ‘I daresay not as beautiful as you.’

‘You do not see yourself with my eyes,’ Augus said, meeting his gaze and feeling the heat of the Raven Prince’s touch. He wanted to sigh in relief. And a traitorous voice within wanted to ask when the Raven Prince had last seen the Nightingale.

‘I hear you have made us more peace, sorely needed during troubled times,’ the Raven Prince said.

‘And you, my Prince? Are you also troubled?’

The Raven Prince’s face went sober, and he looked away for long seconds, his hands tensing on Augus’ skin. Finally, he looked back.

‘There are serpents in my Court,’ the Raven Prince said, something cold in his voice.

Augus resisted the urge to shiver, mastered all his responses to that sentence. The Raven Prince suspected him, had suspected him for _years._ It was a game between them, one the Raven Prince seemed happy enough to play. But not anymore? Or was this simply the Raven Prince acknowledging that he was, once more, aware of Augus’ hidden motives, even if he didn’t know what Augus aimed for?

‘Somehow, I do not believe you mean the contingent of naga that visit us once every two weeks.’

The Raven Prince stared at Augus steadily, and Augus knew the room hadn’t truly dropped in temperature, knew it was only the fear he felt that one day the Raven Prince would no longer indulge him. Would shove him and his plans away before Augus had a chance to see them through. It was a strange dance, and the Raven Prince a particular dance-partner.

‘Tell me about how you inflict such pain, and still make it a pleasurable experience,’ the Raven Prince said, moving his hands away, leaving them by his sides as he walked several paces towards the pack of Augus’ travel gear, still crusted in mud in some places.

Augus tilted his head, then sat on the edge of his bed, crossing one leg over the other.

‘It’s not complicated,’ Augus said, shrugging. ‘On the _piste,_ you work with the rapier until you are sore and aching. You take strikes to your body which – even through protective clothing – can leave bruises. Yet the joy of fencing brings you back over and over again. Indeed, there is none of your hard-won success without that pain. I’m not sure what I do is so much different.’

He held out both his hands, palm up.

‘Here,’ he said, indicating his left hand, ‘is the pain. And here,’ he held up his right, ‘is the incentive waiting for you, should you brave it.’

Augus let his hands fall in his lap once more.

‘It is a matter of striking a balance between one and the other.’

‘I understand this in fencing, even in learning Magecraft there must be sacrifice, privation, before truths can be won. Perhaps I can understand this in what you do, also. Before I met you, I had assumed all physical congress was…base. You transcended my misconceptions; and I must say, Augus – that does not happen often with me, anymore.’

The Raven Prince was speaking to the fact that he was so rarely surprised these days. He had lived in the world long enough, gained so many different experiences. His Raven Prince, so prone to apathy, depression, _boredom._ He was becoming more reckless as the years passed, and perhaps the increasing civil unrest they sometimes observed in the nations around them, was a strange transference of energy, the Unseelie fae feeling what lurked in the Raven Prince’s heart. He was turning to discord more and more.

A bored King, a tired Prince, one who – Augus wondered – might not even want the throne anymore, even though he wanted the status and praise that came with it.

‘My liege,’ Augus said, drawing the Raven Prince’s eyes, ‘be clear with me.’

‘I find myself curious about flogging. The act of flogging. It was the only tool in your range that intrigued me, and I wish to know how you make the act of _beating_ someone pleasurable.’

Augus was surprised. It was true that the Raven Prince’s fingertips had lingered over the softly worked leather tips of the flogger Augus had shown him; but Augus had simply assumed it was the Raven Prince’s love of experiencing texture – not any great regard for the tool itself.

‘I am not sure this is a good idea,’ Augus said, carefully. Even as his heart raced and he _wanted_ to see it, wanted to see the Raven Prince’s back striping up for him, wanted the whip of leather through the air, the strike of it.

‘Nor I,’ the Raven Prince said candidly. Once, years ago, if Augus had spoken so clearly to him – the Raven Prince would have reprimanded him. Now it was par for the course.

‘You speak of going far beyond what I have shown you,’ Augus said. ‘My Prince, you are a sensitive creature, it is a facet I admire, I adore. But it is that very sensitivity which makes you ill-suited to what you ask.’

Augus stood, walked over, and the Raven Prince wouldn’t meet his eyes.

‘You are troubled,’ Augus repeated, frowning. He reached up slowly, gave the Raven Prince plenty of time to step away. But the Raven Prince didn’t move away, and Augus touched fingers to the Raven Prince’s cheek, stroking gently before dropping his hand. ‘You are troubled, my liege, and it is more than just the serpents that lurk within your home.’

‘I can handle the serpents,’ the Raven Prince said, staring ahead.

‘Does that imply there is something you _cannot_ handle? For you are resourceful, truly, and you will overcome anything you set your mind to.’

‘No,’ the Raven Prince said, smiling as though Augus were not even in the room. A private thing, intended only for himself. ‘No, I cannot.’

‘Your Majesty,’ Augus said quietly, wishing to offer something genuine. His need to seek revenge disappeared swiftly beneath the river of thoughts that wanted to soothe.

‘I wish for you to do this,’ the Raven Prince said. ‘To show me what it is you truly do to so many of your clients. For I know you have only shown me a portion of your skills. Yet they speak of you so highly, those clients of yours that you have hurt, that you have reduced to cries of pain.’

‘Then you’ll need to give me time, since I’ll not use a flogger on you that has been used on another. And I wish to make one for the occasion. If you dislike it, you can burn it, if you wish.’

‘Yes,’ the Raven Prince said, meeting his eyes. ‘How long will it take to craft?’

‘With my other duties, about two weeks,’ Augus said honestly. He’d source new leather, but he had most of the tools he needed to make his own tools back at his underwater home. It would give him time to concentrate, to focus on what the Raven Prince might need from him. This was a game-changer he hadn’t expected, and he didn’t yet know how it would change things between them. For though he sensed glimpses of masochism in the Raven Prince, they were buried so deep that Augus had never expected to truly get his hands on them.

‘Tell me,’ the Raven Prince said as he walked towards Augus’ door. ‘Tell me when you are finished. When you are ready.’

‘Of course, my Prince,’ Augus said, as the Raven Prince left his room, leaving Augus to wonder at the encounter.

*

He ordered the leather of fae elk, dyed black, specifically for the flogger. Initially, he wanted white, but on the very small chance that he did split the Raven Prince’s skin, he didn’t want to leave the leather visibly stained. He picked a deep violet as an accent colour, and decided anything more than that would feel overdone.

He was aware, as he wrapped the handle in a decorative pattern, that he couldn’t make a high intensity flogger for the Raven Prince. But he was also quite certain that his Prince would feel cheated with anything too gentle.

It was a multi-tailed flogger – seventeen tails in all. Two tails were long strands braided together to create higher, heavier impact. Three strands ended in sharp tips that provided decent sting. There was a science and art behind finding the right flogger for a client. Some clients wanted the sharp, merciless sting that lit their backs and thighs and ass on fire. Some wanted a heavy thud that made them feel as though they were truly being _hit,_ their bodies rocked, their muscles bruised.

Some wanted their skin split open and yet others wanted only the _hint_ of a flogging, while not truly receiving one at all.

It was a craft he cared about. He had sold floggers in the past, when he used to work from his underwater home. But in the end he stopped the business. Too many came and asked him for items they didn’t know how to use safely, or treated their tools and their lovers with disrespect.

He tested the flogger against a leather padded cross in his now mostly unused client rooms. It felt good to swing a flogger again, and he realised, abruptly, that it had been nine months since he’d last had a client down here with him.

When he’d first come up with his plan to infiltrate the Unseelie Court, to do even more than that, he’d thought it would be the fastest path that would help him regain control over his life.

But, as he looked around his disused client room, a black and violet flogger hanging in his hands, he was uncertain.

Still, he had no time for such doubts. He turned and walked from the room, plotting the way he might introduce the Raven Prince to his flogger, wondering if he’d be permitted to go far enough to make his Prince caw.

*

Augus was in the room with the grey table once more. He sat close to the large spelled parchment on the wall, looking at a branching tree of names set into scruffy rectangles. The Raven Prince watched Augus’ eyes track across the names, so Augus tried not to let his eyes linger too long on a particular name he saw there.

A War General who had not been a War General when he’d last seen him. And that, all during a time when he’d not known the Nightingale existed, when life had been simpler.

Augus looked at the tree as a whole and grimaced.

‘What is the Oak King doing?’ he said, and the Raven Prince inclined his head, as though Augus was a student who had asked the right question. It was condescending. It still sent a flush of pleasure down Augus’ spine.

He thought of the flogger he had back in his room, and his fingers tightened minutely on the edges of the heavy parchment he held.

‘You know this gentleman?’ the Raven Prince said, pointing to the angular jagged lines that made up the name that had caused Augus’ eyes to apparently linger after all. He cursed himself. Even with his face schooled to blankness, the Raven Prince knew how to read him too well. ‘You’ve helmed the Wild Hunt with him, have you not?’

‘Sometimes,’ Augus said, something odd seizing up in his chest.

‘It is more than that, isn’t it? The Wild Hunt allows both alignments to mix freely, but you invited him to share equal footing with you. But he has not betrayed anything at those Hunts to my sources, nor to you, that I know of. So. He is their War General, if you have any further intelligence on him, I should know it.’

‘You should,’ Augus said. ‘And if I had anything to share with you that would not be breaking the bounds of confidence with a client, I would share it.’

The Raven Prince’s eyes widened, he turned swiftly back to the name, considering it.

‘The Seelie War General sought out _your_ services?’

‘He wasn’t _the_ War General, back then,’ Augus said quietly.

This was dangerous. Augus knew a great deal about Gwyn ap Nudd – or, certainly, enough of his vulnerabilities that he could pare him back for the Raven Prince’s gaze. But he had never broken the bounds of client confidentiality with anyone, and he wasn’t about to start now. It was a sacrosanct bond. The Raven Prince respected that. He had to. Without it, what was to stop Augus from telling others about the Raven Prince’s insecurities? That he sometimes shuddered with loathing when cloaked in human flesh? That he could flush with embarrassment too, just from someone connecting his black birthmarks with a wet, hungry tongue?

‘He sought your services,’ the Raven Prince said speculatively. ‘That tells me much, I think. You do know what the Oak King does to those of his military who have sexual congress with the Unseelie?’

Augus said nothing. Betrayed nothing. He didn’t fuck _all_ of his clients, and the Raven Prince knew that. After a few seconds, the Raven Prince squinted in a mix of pleasure and frustration.

‘He came to you for your services. I have one question that I will demand you answer, for it will not force you to betray any confidence. Did he seek you before or after he started joining you at the Wild Hunt?’

Augus didn’t shift in his seat, but it was difficult to quell the impulse.

‘Before,’ Augus said.

‘My, that is _interesting,’_ the Raven Prince said, smirking. ‘He hadn’t been to a single Wild Hunt until he met you? And then he just happened to helm it alongside you, at times? I gave my permission at the time, thinking it might be a coup to get closer to the Oak King’s child of light. It turns out that you were closer to him all along.’

‘No longer,’ Augus said calmly. He pushed thoughts of the War General from his mind, and waved a hand at the large sheet of parchment on the wall. ‘I cannot give you the information you need. Nor are we close enough that I can source it for you now.’

‘The Oak King is creating a martial Court,’ the Raven Prince said finally, letting it go. ‘See, here? And here? Do not look at his military, but how he places his ambassadors and diplomats. He is readying for war.’

‘With us?’ Augus said.

‘No,’ the Raven Prince said, ‘not with us. With a bird whose name you never speak.’

Augus did not flinch nor startle, but he betrayed his displeasure all the same. The tightening of his fingers, which the Raven Prince saw with his black eyes. The way his jaw tensed. The Raven Prince missed none of it.

A surge of petty, spiteful rage – like acid – rushed through him, stung his bones, until he took only one slow breath, looked up, and said:

‘Your flogger is ready.’

The Raven Prince also did not flinch nor startle, but he went very still, like a prey animal caught in the gaze of a predator. And, beneath the table, Augus’ cock twitched. He relaxed his hands, leaned back, left his body language confident but open. Non-threatening.

‘You asked me to inform you,’ Augus said.

‘Young Master Augus, you need to work on your timing,’ the Raven Prince said, and then he laughed harshly. ‘It will be the death of me, one day.’

Augus’ heart skipped a beat, but he only smiled lazily and then lifted his hands in an eloquent shrug.

‘If you are no longer curious, then I shall keep the flogger for myself, and dream of what might have been.’

‘Don’t mistake me,’ the Raven Prince said, waving a finger absently at the parchment so that the ink swirled and vanished. ‘I am keenly curious.’

‘Yes?’ Augus said, trying to ignore all the traps the Raven Prince tried to set for him, trying ignore the fact that the Raven Prince had first baited him by referencing the Nightingale, then implied that Augus wanted to _kill_ him.

A dance nearing its end, then. Perhaps the Raven Prince grew impatient. But Augus wasn’t ready. Not quite. Not yet. He needed more time.

‘I’ll come to your rooms this evening,’ the Raven Prince said. ‘At ten.’

‘Yes,’ Augus said, and when the Raven Prince looked towards the blank parchment once more, Augus knew he’d been dismissed. He got up slowly, giving the Raven Prince time to say anything else, to call him back, but no words followed him through the door. He only felt the weight of unspoken sentences between them as he closed the door behind him.

*

Augus’ maintained his own rooms. He did not permit any of the servants to come in and clean them. They delivered fresh linens to him, left them just inside his door, and he did everything himself. Cleaning was a ritual he enjoyed. To create order from lack of order, to create mastery of one’s environment where previously there were loose ends. His bed immaculately made, his chests free from dust and clutter, featuring only tasteful ornaments that suited his aesthetic. A sculpture of _Elodea_ waterweed carved from peridot and jade on a pale dresser made from an ivory wood. A bone vase of marsh marigolds adding a blaze of yellow to the room. Subtle reminders of his heritage, his lake, everywhere.

He wasn’t even bothered that his rooms had no windows to the night gardens, to the constellations in the night-twilight skies beyond. He liked the feeling of being ensconced by his environment, having grown up in the black of a lake, the only light that which shone from his own eyes, or from the Mage-light he could afford to purchase as he grew older.

The flogger was a stain of black upon silvery sheets worked with white threads. Augus had placed it there, made it look like it had been casually thrown when in fact he’d put it down carefully, spread the tails of the flogger himself. Every time he walked around his rooms, his eyes were drawn to it, his heartbeat would speed up.

The Raven Prince might take one look at it and leave.

Augus had prepared himself for this to be a very short evening. But he hoped, too, for much more.

He still hadn’t entirely forgiven the Raven Prince for deliberately mentioning the Nightingale. He sometimes thought the Raven Prince wanted to help him, wanted to give him something he could not give himself. Yet at other times, it seemed as though the Raven Prince only wanted to make sport of him to alleviate his own boredom.

And it was then that Augus remembered his plans, the reasons he had installed himself into this Court, the reasons he stayed even though he loathed it.

The Raven Prince didn’t knock at his door, he let himself in. He was barefoot, the hem of his pants frayed and worn. The clothing he often wore before and after shifting. He’d flown then, he’d sought the skies in raven form.

Which meant he was nervous.

The Raven Prince’s eyes moved straight to the flogger, his face remaining composed as he walked over to it. He reached down and hesitated before touching the handle, then dragged his fingers along it.

When the Raven Prince’s hand returned to it a second time, this time to touch the tails, Augus walked up to him and placed his palms flat on the Raven Prince’s shoulder-blades – so much bone, and very little padding to them. The Raven Prince paused, then Augus heard him lick his lips. His mouth was dry.

‘It’s so soft,’ the Raven Prince said.

‘And a rapier bends in the hands, but can still kill,’ Augus said, as he pressed his chest to the Raven Prince’s back, and slid his hands slowly under his arms, curving around, until he could reach the button at his collar. He was being forward, but he knew the Raven Prince would step away if he did not like it. Though he could be shy, he also appreciated Augus’ directness.

He unbuttoned his shirt slowly, moving down, sliding his hands beneath fabric that he knew cost enough to support underfae families for years. The Raven Prince wore spider silks spun from endangered spiders. Cotton from a variegation that only one fae in the world grew, harvested, spun herself. Wool from sheep that only ate gold and silver, drinking only mercury and other molten metals. Augus cared less for the material than he did for the skin it covered, sliding his fingers down the faint bumps of ribs, feeling the hollow of the Raven Prince’s stomach when he inhaled sharply.

‘You, also,’ the Raven Prince said, stepping away. ‘Undress.’

An order, and Augus still bristled to receive them, even as he unbuttoned his own shirt quickly and took it off, draping it over a chair. The Raven Prince watched him as his hands moved to the button of his pants, but Augus focused only on what he was doing, needing a moment to collect his thoughts.

Augus’ eyes flickered up when the Raven Prince took the flogger by its handle, testing its weight. And then a sharp flash of movement – one that may have taken someone else by surprise, but that Augus half-expected. The Raven Prince flicked his arm and wrist and the flogger snapped loudly in the air.

The Raven Prince was, after all, the fae’s most eminent fencer.

‘It has bite,’ the Raven Prince said, sounding satisfied.

‘Yes,’ Augus said, stepping out of his pants and folding them over the armrest of a chair pushed back against the wall.

The Raven Prince gestured to one of Augus’ chest of drawers, and then something playful, dark, entered his gaze.

‘You will not like me for this, but I wish you to place your hands palm down on that chest, and let me test this tool that you wish to use on me.’

Augus couldn’t hide his reaction to that. Couldn’t stop the movement of one leg as it moved backwards, the tensing of his hands by his sides. Fifteen and a half times they’d lain together, and while the Raven Prince sometimes pushed at his limits, it had never been anything like this. The one topping, dominating, was invariably Augus. The Raven Prince held all the cards in every other part of his life.

It was hard to remember how to draw a full breath.

‘Your Majesty,’ Augus began.

‘Are you refusing me?’ the Raven Prince said, and Augus’ lips thinned, he shook his head. He walked stiffly over to the chest, his heartsong of dominance raging inside of him, and Augus scrambling to quell it, to force it _down._ For two weeks he’d been riding the high of imagining flogging the Raven Prince, and now…

‘When you said you were curious, I did not know you meant this.’

‘I did not mean this,’ the Raven Prince said. ‘I mean for you to strike me with it. But I wish to know what to expect. And I do not desire to be a voyeur while you strike a client. Therefore, there is only one other way I can know, isn’t there?’

That was true enough, Augus supposed. He stood in front of the chest, looking down at the pale wood, feeling a sweat come to his palms.

The Raven Prince could leave whenever he wanted. That was his prerogative. He was _King._

But Augus could not. He could not play this game he’d set in motion without bowing to the Raven Prince’s will. He placed his fingertips on the chest, and managed to stop his hands from shaking. But his muscles coiled with tension, for he did not like to have his naked body exposed to the Raven Prince in this manner, did not like to have his back to someone who could snap a flogger with that much force. He could be cut open in seconds. He did not _submit_ to the will of others.

He bared his teeth at the wood he stared at, felt a wildness crawl about inside him.

The end of the handle touched him square between the shoulders, and he didn’t breathe at all.

‘Is this part of it?’ the Raven Prince said. ‘You are unsettled.’

‘Unsettled’ was a very kind understatement, and they both knew it.

‘It can be,’ Augus said, flexing his fingers.

He could do this. He tested his floggers and whips on himself all the time. He knew the sting and thud of them. Not in this context, but he was no stranger to pain.

But that was it, wasn’t it? He was no stranger to pain. To the myriad pains that life could bring.

_With a bird whose name you never speak._

Augus lifted his hands from the dresser, went to step away, already feeling relief at his decision to stop whatever it was that was happening. But the Raven Prince stepped even closer, something calculating in his gaze, and Augus stilled again. He was betraying too much. He was showing too much _fear._

‘Tell me what to do,’ the Raven Prince said, and Augus closed his eyes at the shift in tone. The strand of helplessness that the Raven Prince wove in deliberately. A hint of surrender, of supplication, enough to make Augus rethink leaving. Enough that he could martial his thoughts and his strengths and step back, press his hands to the dresser. ‘Tell me. I’ll only do it once.’

_I’ll only do it once._

Augus’ fingers curled. This felt too much like punishment. Too much like the Raven Prince was finally angry with him for holding back, had finally had enough of Augus always obfuscating, dancing around the truth.

‘Once,’ Augus said, and his voice was harder than usual.

‘Only once,’ the Raven Prince agreed, his tone of voice almost warm.

‘Then it is simple. You strike me the way you think you wish to be struck.’

Augus expected a pause, for the Raven Prince to say something else. Instead he inhaled sharply when the Raven Prince – already standing in the right position behind him – simply lifted his arm and lashed out. An almost flat thud as the tails hit his skin, and the dominant in him counted down, knowing the pain wouldn’t hit straight away. That there would be at least three seconds before-

_There._

A gasp, and Augus’ fingers dug into wood with the pain that flared across his torso, but he closed his mouth after that and opened his eyes, dropped his hands from the dresser.

He did not expect the second strike, and his hands came up automatically, needing to brace himself as the force pushed him forwards. The breath was forced from his lungs, his eyes flew open with shock and something that scratched pain into his chest.

_Only once._

The lie of it raked through him and he growled. He heard the Raven Prince clear his throat, and then knew he was raising the flogger again. That it would not be once. And this – he could not do this. He could not. He had fallen into a trap somehow. He’d missed the signs. This was not-

 _‘Stop!’_ Augus demanded.

A pause, and horror stirred in every part of Augus’ body. He froze.

He’d compelled the King.

Blood drained from his face, sweat broke out over his body. He knew the Raven Prince would be able to smell the reek of it now, because even he could scent it, his own fear acrid and citrusy and revolting. Still building.

He hunched his shoulders and managed to stay silent to the tantrum of rage that followed. The three sharp, quick lashes – the Raven Prince’s full weight behind each one – and Augus’ skin splitting open on the first and breaking apart further, blood trickling down his back, into the crevice of his buttocks, oozing down his thighs.

His knuckles hurt where he clutched the chest, his eyes were squeezed shut, his teeth ached where he grit them together viciously to let no noise except the hissing of his breath escape. He sensed when the Raven Prince shifted. Knew that the Raven Prince stood alongside him, was watching him in profile.

Rage flooded him. Dirty and thick and so strong that if he did not keep himself mastered, he would have turned and directed decades of hatred upon his Prince. He would lash out with claws and waterweed and ruin anything he could get his hands on, tear the feathers from his flesh, chew the gristle of his throat. His teeth had sharpened. He tasted poison in his own mouth.

The Raven Prince said nothing. Only stood, calmly, by his side.

 _‘I asked you to stop,’_ Augus said, his true voice finding him, and a bone deep pain in his chest that he wouldn’t name.

The Raven Prince reached out then, and Augus flinched when the handle of the flogger touched the underside of his chin. A little force, and Augus looked up, stared at the wall in front of him, refusing to look at his Prince.

‘Yes,’ the Raven Prince said. ‘But it is not my job to care for your boundaries. It is your job to care for mine.’

A harsh, gritty sound as Augus’ claws scored the wood of the dresser.

‘And, to be distinct,’ the Raven Prince’s voice turning regal and cold. ‘You did not _ask,_ you _compelled_ – were you anyone else, I would have you put to death for an act so revolting.’

‘I apologise,’ Augus managed, his eyes burning as the pain in his back increased. His voice shook.

The flogger was placed on the chest by Augus’ tense hands, and the Raven Prince placed fingers on Augus’ upper arm. He stood bare-chested, but not fully naked, and Augus’ heartsong felt so shaken that he was swallowing down bile, and couldn’t make himself stop. He would not vomit. Not here. It would be shameful.

‘Augus, you are too wroth to continue this tonight,’ the Raven Prince said, and Augus nodded. It was true. Rage still coursed through him. Fury so barely banked that he knew he was close to getting himself executed if he made a misstep. He could not turn and look at the Raven Prince’s face. He could do no more than stare at the wall and focus on his breathing.

‘Very well,’ the Raven Prince said, sighing. ‘I am still curious to experience this. But not now. You are getting blood on your carpet and I know you are fussy about your living space. I’ll take my leave. The next time you wish this to occur, I assure you, I will not do this to you again.’

Augus bowed his head. He did not know, truly, if he could even touch the flogger now and not be reminded of what the Raven Prince had done, and he knew – disgust thick in his mouth – that the reaction was precisely what the Raven Prince had likely intended.

The Raven Prince left after putting on his shirt, buttoning it slowly. The entire time, Augus faced the wall, focused on his breathing – still audible in the room – and told himself that it was worth it. It had to be worth it.

When the door closed, Augus let out a pained sound and lowered his head to the chest, where he could feel himself shaking. His back aflame, the flogger wielded with far more force than Augus had ever intended for it.

A roar of fury, and he dug claws hard into the chest of drawers and put his waterhorse weight into upturning it. He ripped sheets, a blanket, a quilt off the bed. Shattered the sculpture of waterweed. Smashed the bone vase against the wall. He raged silently, impotently, and then raised his hands to his face and calmed himself.

In the bathroom, he saw that the damage to his back was as bad as he expected, and he was struck by a sudden desire to see Ash. To go to Ash’s underwater home. To seek refuge.

But no, he couldn’t do that. Ash asked questions. He wanted too many answers. Augus had nothing he wanted to say, and his back needed tending. Years of providing his services to others made him expect aftercare where none would be forthcoming. And the awkward, painful act of trying to reach the lacerated areas of his own back with a salve made it impossible to truly look after the cuts.

He was Inner Court status now, and he would heal quickly. And because the Raven Prince hadn’t used magic on him, he would not scar.

As he lay face down on his bed in his ruined room, waiting for his skin to knit, he clung to his heartsong. He let his thoughts drift, and then finally sank into a black, still place within himself where he no longer had to think at all.

*

‘Bro! Oh, man, what an awesome surprise! I didn’t expect to see you here!’

Augus stood up slowly, the overstuffed couch in Ash’s underwater home reluctant to let go. Ash was already looking him over, eyes searching, but Augus wore none of the weariness he carried within him on the outside. Augus stepped around the coffee table, ignored the smell of plastic everywhere – containers, cases, and more that he couldn’t understand – and stepped into his brother’s arms.

‘I thought we weren’t meeting for like two weeks,’ Ash said. Augus said nothing. He closed his eyes. Ash hugged like he wanted to give support and love to anyone he met, and Augus liked that Ash did it without thinking, that he didn’t have to _ask_ for Ash’s arms to be so tight around him, for his hands to splay and hold him, for the side of his head to press into Augus’. He was just there, hair damp and dripping, human-world clothing still wet from his teleportation.

‘I shan’t be staying long,’ Augus said, and the breath huffed out of him as Ash hugged him even harder.

‘Yeah?’ Ash said, keeping a hold of Augus even as he pulled back, narrowing his eyes at him. ‘That Court, gets to everyone after a while, doesn’t it?’

‘It does,’ Augus admitted, for all he had been trying to get Ash to visit him in the Unseelie Court, he was somewhat glad that Ash was mostly clean of that environment.

‘You miss me?’ Ash said, grinning, even as he tugged Augus back down onto the couch and tumbled on after him, leaning hard, invading space in a way that was welcome.

Augus closed his eyes, petted Ash’s hair, smelled the melange of scents that had nothing to do with the fae world, its politics, its plans and dances of subterfuge.

‘I’ve missed you,’ Augus said, and it wasn’t until Ash propped himself up and stared at Augus, something sad on his face, that he realised how much he’d betrayed in that sentence. Augus met his eyes for seconds longer, and then pointed at something inane on the table. ‘Is that from the human world?’

Ash tilted his head, not as stupid as he sometimes pretended to be. But in the end his face brightened and he picked up something made of plastic, with a shiny disc inside of it. Augus settled back into the armrest and its accompanying cushions, and received a cheerful lecture on something he cared little about. But his spirits rose all the same, and all of Ash’s concerned glances didn’t spoil the pleasant company of his brother.

He stayed a week, and Ash cleared whatever schedule he kept in the human world and stayed with him. It was nourishing, it gave Augus some perspective, and more than that – it reminded him that there was a world beyond that Court and its machinations. Even if it was no longer a world that he was fully a part of, it was still diverting, pleasing, to be reminded that his entire world hadn’t been destroyed as he’d once feared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (all errors in Welsh translations are my own.)
> 
>  _Ach ‘n arddun_ \- You are beautiful  
>  _Arogleui da_ \- You smell good  
>  _Ac rydych, tywysog_ – And you, Prince.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations of Welsh can be found in the end-notes. :) (Thank you for reading!!! You folks rock - and for those who may feel inclined to comment, I heart you).

Two weeks after seeing Ash, Augus sent a note to the Raven Prince, requesting his company. It was far more formal than usual, but Augus thought that might be for the best. Any rage he felt over the incident that had occurred between them drifted through as though from a great distance. He was confident he could conduct a scene with the Raven Prince and it be safe, even tender. He was frustrated with the amount of fear he had to fight within himself. The Raven Prince had left his nerves raw, exposed.

When the Raven Prince came to his main room that evening, entering without knocking, the flogger didn’t lie upon the bed waiting. Augus had it in a drawer. And he would withdraw it only once he was clear what would occur.

The Raven Prince stood just inside the room, the door closed behind him. He watched Augus with a measuring gaze – the same gaze that Augus had felt upon him since he’d returned from Ash’s home.

‘You ran from me,’ the Raven Prince said. ‘You have responsibilities to this Court. To me.’

‘I left clear instruction that I was to be summoned if you or any fae had immediate need of me,’ Augus said, voice calm. ‘I acquitted myself of my responsibilities. And I returned within seven days.’

‘You _ran,’_ the Raven Prince said, something wondering entering his voice. ‘And you are still afraid.’

‘I’m not sure what you expected,’ Augus said, suddenly tired.

‘Nor I,’ the Raven Prince said, stepping forwards quickly until he stood before Augus where he sat on the edge of his bed. Augus didn’t look up, but looked away instead. He scowled when he felt hands on his face, tilting and turning his head until Augus had to meet the Raven Prince’s black eyes. ‘I apologise.’

Augus blinked at him, shocked. The Raven Prince’s fingers were careful. A thumb reached up and touched his eyebrow.

‘I broke something that I wasn’t aware was there,’ the Raven Prince said, lips quirking up just enough that it might have been a smile on someone else’s face. ‘I wasn’t aware that you trusted me. In point of fact, Augus, I know that you do not.’

‘And you do not trust me in all things,’ Augus said calmly. ‘Yet you trust me not to hurt you when we are in this room. When you come to me like this. And I have not hurt you.’

‘That is true,’ the Raven Prince said. ‘You have only ever pushed when I have said yes. But I did not think a similar trust was offered in return. And now it is gone. Yet you would still do this thing for me? Because I asked it?’

‘Yes,’ Augus said, pulling away from the Raven Prince’s hands and standing, moving a few steps from the Raven Prince and opening the drawer, pulling out the flogger whose black and violet tails were now stained with his blood. He began to turn, but the Raven Prince was already there, in his space. Augus wanted ease and confidence, and found uncertainty.

‘I have this strange fantasy,’ the Raven Prince said, voice low and urgent. ‘I imagine that I have met you not now, in this cracked and broken world where we have all become the playthings of Mages. I imagine that I have met you tens of thousands of years ago, before I was King, before you were Courtier. Have you ever imagined similar?’

Augus swallowed, stared at him.

He hadn’t, exactly. But he’d imagined…what it might be like to truly have the Raven Prince as a friend and confidante. How the circumstances would need to be different that they could meet on an equal footing, and discourse as companions.

‘The playthings of Mages? You are a Mage,’ Augus said, and then he smiled. ‘You make playthings of all of us.’

‘Would that it were that simple,’ the Raven Prince said, leaning towards Augus, his hand reaching out and touching not the handle of the flogger, but the tails. ‘And when you hit me with this, will you break what is left of our trust?’

‘No,’ Augus said, scenting a cleanness on the Raven Prince. Had he showered before coming? Were his clothes freshly laundered? He wasn’t wearing his silver, charmed chain.

‘You show me too much tolerance,’ the Raven Prince said, and Augus couldn’t help but smile.

‘My liege, you are my King, and my Prince. What would you have me do?’

‘No,’ the Raven Prince said, touching Augus’ arm. ‘I wish to know what you would have _me_ do.’

Augus looked down at slender fingers on his arm, fingernails that were faintly bitten. They were manicured, polished, so the Raven Prince must have bitten the jags into some of the nails recently. Augus turned, found that easiness he was searching for, his uncertainty flowing away. For his Raven Prince had always been capable of both cruelty and kindness, a capricious creature. Augus knew that, and he could send the part of himself that was frightened deep into the lake in his mind.

He took the Raven Prince’s hand and raised his to his lips, kissing the knuckles, meeting the Raven Prince’s eyes.

‘Come here,’ Augus said, drawing the Raven Prince away from the flogger and letting his hand go. He began to unbutton the Raven Prince’s shirt, this time facing him, the weight of the Raven Prince’s eyes upon him as Augus worked. When he exposed the trail of small, scalloped black feathers just below his navel, disappearing beneath the hem of his low-slung pants, he touched them. Stroking along the grain of the feathers, before sliding off the Raven Prince’s shirt. His hands touched, smoothed, moved lower once more.

This was much easier. To have an expanse of skin to focus on. To feel pulses beating beneath his fingertips and measure nervousness and arousal and want. His nostrils flared as he unbuttoned the Raven Prince’s pants, only to find a leather tie there as well. He undid the knot, unlaced the leather, listened for the faint shifts in the Raven Prince’s breathing.

‘I wish to remain clothed,’ Augus said, as he slid fingers down sharp hipbones and found the tender skin beneath, scratching at it lightly. The Raven Prince jolted, then sighed.

‘If that is what you wish, then you will remain clothed. Though it is a great deprivation, I assure you.’

Augus smiled, indulgent, even as he knelt and looked up at the Raven Prince, pulled his pants slowly down, exposing a quiescent cock and his pubic feathers that even now, glistened blue violet in the light. Augus leaned in and pressed a kiss against a strong, wiry thigh. He was so used to thinking of the Raven Prince as a teacher, his King, but in this he was more a student, and Augus appreciated that despite years having passed since he’d last been able to curve a hand around the Raven Prince’s naked knee, kiss the bony knobble of it. The Raven Prince still accepted his touch, and Augus was still able to give it.

‘You are stunning,’ Augus said quietly, and the Raven Prince tensed. Augus pressed his hands down on the bridges of the Raven Prince’s feet. ‘You do not see yourself the way we see you.’

‘No,’ the Raven Prince said. ‘I clearly do not. Yet I know you are sincere.’

Augus looked up and met dark eyes, he smiled lazily. Then he stood, a single, fluid movement and placed strong hands on the Raven Prince’s hips. Like this, the Raven Prince was still taller than he. Augus trailed hands up a taut waist, skin stretched tightly over muscle and bone, then stroked over his scalp, finding the vanes of feathers hiding within hair that grew messily, different lengths, none of it carefully cut.

‘How do you want me?’ the Raven Prince asked, and Augus swallowed at the words. The Raven Prince was being far more submissive than usual, likely doing it deliberately, but it was still a burn of lust in his own body to hear such words from the Unseelie King. He licked his lips and looked around the room.

‘That space of wall,’ Augus said, nodding over to it. ‘Face it, and press your hands to it.’

The Raven Prince nodded, walked over as though they did this all the time. He did not hesitate when he raised his hands to the wall at shoulder height.

‘You’ll want to spread your legs,’ Augus said, picking up the flogger and squeezing the handle hard. ‘It makes it easier to brace yourself.’

The Raven Prince took several seconds, but eventually, as Augus walked towards him, he spread his legs just a little. Augus licked at his teeth, wishing that the Raven Prince submitted to him as Augus could make clients submit to him. How good it would feel, to kick his legs apart further at the ankles. To make the position less about bracing himself, and more about exposure. But he would not, and instead he just left it as a pleasing image he would return to later.

He pressed his hand flat against the Raven Prince’s back, just beneath the middle of his shoulder blades. Felt a heartbeat that wasn’t racing, nor settled.

Augus tilted the flogger with his other hand and let the soft tails rest against the sensitive skin of the Raven Prince’s ass. A jump in his heartbeat, but nothing indicating panic. Augus tilted his head, closed his eyes, monitored the thump in the Raven Prince’s chest even as he dragged the flogger upwards with his other hand, caressing him with the buttery leather, familiarising him where the Raven Prince had not done the same for Augus.

‘Is this part of it?’ the Raven Prince asked, and Augus nodded without opening his eyes.

‘Yes, it is.’

‘I thought you used this for beating people,’ the Raven Prince said, and Augus grimaced, opened his eyes even as he trailed the tails of the flogger along the Raven Prince’s shoulder, letting them shower over his upper arm. He couldn’t bring himself to answer, lest he offend his Prince. ‘I only hit you with it.’

‘I recall,’ Augus said, and refused to let the sharpness that wanted to be spoken go free. But he paused for a few seconds, and the Raven Prince twisted and looked at him.

‘I won’t do it again,’ the Raven Prince said.

‘As it pleases you,’ Augus said, defaulting to formality. The Raven Prince had said he’d only strike him once – and clearly hadn’t been speaking the truth at the time. If the Raven Prince decided to pick up a flogger or whip and have him beaten, Augus could do nothing to stop him. He always knew that was technically true, but now that he had actually experienced it, he wouldn’t forget it again.

A shadow passed over the Raven Prince’s face, his eyes twitched, and he looked forward once more.

‘How tender you still are,’ the Raven Prince said, voice soft.

‘Now,’ Augus said, drawing his thoughts back to the business at hand, caressing the Raven Prince’s other shoulder with the flogger, moving slowly and steadily, no touch coming as a surprise. ‘What, exactly, do you wish for? You obviously expect this to hurt.’

‘Yes,’ the Raven Prince said, head bowing. Augus switched so that he was holding the flogger handle forward, and bisected the skin at the Raven Prince’s spine with the handle itself, moving downwards with slow pressure. He shoved forwards just a little at the base of his spine, where the cleft of his ass began. The Raven Prince exhaled harder, the sound audible, and Augus moved the flogger in his hands and used the tails to caress softly again. This time, from the backs of his knees upwards over the sensitive backs of his thighs.

‘Skin broken or unbroken?’ Augus said. ‘You should be aware this flogger is not designed to break skin. But it can be done if you wish it.’

The Raven Prince had tensed for several seconds and then he laughed, shaking his head. He didn’t expound on his thoughts, and Augus left them. He wondered if the Raven Prince was thinking of the fact that he’d broken Augus’ skin, and decided it didn’t matter, he wasn’t going to ask.

‘Unbroken,’ the Raven Prince said. ‘Though I may change my mind later.’

‘Of course,’ Augus said, rubbing the gooseflesh that had appeared on the Raven Prince’s skin with his thumb.

He reached around, leaning closer, palming the Raven Prince’s ribs where he was very sensitive, and then letting his hand drop to where the feathers grew at his crotch, ruffling them, listening to a sharper intake of breath, a heavier exhale. He didn’t touch the Raven Prince’s cock directly, but he pressed his fingers to the base of it, just enough to tell that he was growing aroused. It surprised him. The Raven Prince was not a typical masochist. He avoided most forms of pain.

Would this be an exception? Or would the first bite of the leather upon his skin end the scene?

Augus’ own blood quickened slowly. He kept his own arousal at a distance, not wanting to distract himself and fall prey to his own desires. He nosed at the small feathers that grew at the back of the Raven Prince’s neck, just below his hairline. He pressed lazy kisses to the bridge of his shoulders, even as the flogger never stopped moving, caressing the skin it found, the outside of his leg, his chest, Augus even dropping the tails down far enough that they’d brush the Raven Prince’s cock.

At that, the Raven Prince gasped, and Augus turned his head in time to see his Prince’s fingers curl against the wall. He smiled to himself, moved the flogger away, continued to kiss him.

‘This is not what I expected,’ the Raven Prince said. Augus said nothing.

He turned the flogger in his hands and began stroking the Raven Prince’s skin with the harder end of the handle, sometimes digging in hard enough that the pressure would be unpleasant, uncomfortable. Augus had worked with clients that weren’t natural masochists, and knew that the best way to build up to an act like this – if he didn’t want to use shock value, anyway – was to slowly condition a person’s body to appreciate discomforting touch before anything painful.

Eventually, the heavier pushes of Augus’ arm, the faint shove of the handle at the slope of a hip, or the crease where ass met thigh, would be reinterpreted as pleasurable. Augus listened to the Raven Prince’s breathing as it deepened, as the Raven Prince’s arms bent until he could lean his head against the wall, where it reflected the sound of his heavier breathing back towards Augus.

‘You like this,’ Augus observed, as he scraped the end of the handle down the middle of the Raven Prince’s back again.

‘ _Mae’n teimlo’n dda,’_ the Raven Prince said, and Augus smiled, a rush of affection finding him. If the Raven Prince was comfortable enough to speak Welsh, then everything was progressing the way Augus wanted it to. And hearing him say it felt good was a reward in and of itself.

Augus increased pressure until each heavy stroke of the handle caused red lines to raise on the Raven Prince’s skin. Upon his back, on his thighs, over the faint curve of his ass. They faded quickly – fae healing kicking in fast – but they were satisfying to see.

‘You mark up very nicely,’ Augus said, and the Raven Prince shivered. Gooseflesh rose over his skin once more. Augus leaned in and pressed a kiss to his shoulder, even as he dug the handle into bone and caused far more pain than pleasure. With his other hand, he reached around once more, rubbed his fingers over the small, neat feathers around the Raven Prince’s cock, and then pressed fingers into the base of his cock once more. The Raven Prince was half-hard, getting harder all the time. ‘I didn’t expect you to like this so much.’

‘I didn’t expect _this,’_ the Raven Prince said. ‘Your capacity to surprise me is far higher than most fae I meet, Augus.’

‘Only because you are unfamiliar with these things,’ Augus said, pressing harder until the Raven Prince went to shift – just slightly – away from it. Augus pushed a bruise into the Raven Prince’s flesh and when the Raven Prince gasped again, Augus’ face flushed with heat.

His instincts were very rarely wrong in situations like this, and his instincts were telling him that the Raven Prince would _like_ this. Not just the heavier strokes of the handle, but the strikes themselves. The idea of it left him dizzy.

‘All right,’ Augus said, taking a step back and getting into the right position. ‘Light strikes at first. If you need to stop, tell me.’

The Raven Prince nodded, and though his body tensed, it wasn’t as much as Augus expected.

It was easy enough to lift the flogger and flick his wrist down, the tails moving weakly against the Raven Prince’s skin. This would not truly hurt. He’d seen fae children idly tap twigs against their legs with the same force. He moved his elbow in a figure eight pattern, starting up at the shoulders, laying the strokes on either side, rhythmically, no surprise in the movements.

After the initial tensing at the strikes, the Raven Prince sagged under the movement. If Augus had started with these motions, they would have stung slightly, but the Raven Prince’s body was accustomed now, and as Augus moved those lighter strikes down the Raven Prince’s back, he remained mostly relaxed.

‘How does it feel?’ Augus said, and the Raven Prince cleared his throat.

‘Warm. Like I am just beginning to overheat in the spring sun.’

Augus smiled. He never became tired listening to the Raven Prince describe sensation.

‘I’m going to increase the pressure,’ Augus said, and the Raven Prince grunted assent, his fingers pressing flat against the wall once more.

Augus swung his arm back, starting a heavier, rhythmic pattern of striking that reddened the Raven Prince’s back. Augus moved down, striking the cheeks of his ass, and then lower still, biting his lower lip when he struck the back of the Raven Prince’s thighs.

The Raven Prince hissed a breath at that, and Augus moved back up to his shoulders, where he bore the pressure with more ease. Then, a couple of minutes later, he shifted his position and without warning, struck at the Raven Prince’s thighs once more.

A faint sound, pained, and Augus’ cock jumped in his pants, his own breathing speeding up.

‘Yes?’ Augus said, moving back to his shoulders, talking over the tails striking skin.

_‘Yes,’_ the Raven Prince said, though his fingers were curled into the wall.

‘Are you hard, my Prince?’ Augus said, not wanting to break the rhythm he’d started. The Raven Prince didn’t react at first, and then nodded once. He cleared his throat again.

‘I am beginning to think I wouldn’t mind, if you broke the skin.’

‘We’re a long way from that, Your Majesty,’ Augus said, and the Raven Prince looked over his shoulder, so that Augus could see the flush on his face, a brightness to his eyes.

‘Truly?’

‘Yes,’ Augus said, ‘but we’re certainly ready for more pressure. Face forward again, please, my Prince. It wouldn’t do to harm that face of yours.’

The Raven Prince blinked at him, turned forwards again, and Augus – arm limber and warm – put more force into the strikes. The rhythm slowed to make room for the fact that he had to swing his arm back more, his wrist had to flick harder to get the right sting from the tails.

With the first, harder strike, the Raven Prince made a hoarse sound, as though he’d been breathing in when the breath had been forced from his lungs.

‘Good?’ Augus said, thinking that it was rare he checked in _this_ often, but then again, he was _flogging the King._

Just thinking it left him hard in his pants, and he adjusted his stance, shaking his head in disbelief.

‘Why do I like this?’ the Raven Prince said in one of the gaps between being struck.

Augus smirked.

‘Best not to overthink it. And since you’re prone to turning everything over in your mind, let me help distract you.’

He increased the pressure once more, hungrily drank in the way the Raven Prince’s fingers spread suddenly on the wall, tensing hard. Each strike was now painful, Augus knew, a sting and thud, pale skin flushing so red that if the Raven Prince had been underfae, Augus would be leaving him bruised for days.

Augus kept the blows mostly up on the Raven Prince’s shoulders, or down on his ass, and then – watching the Raven Prince closely – he landed several of those strikes on the backs of his thighs.

The Raven Prince’s knees buckled slightly, he caught himself by leaning forward abruptly, head against the wall. Augus stopped flogging him and stepped forwards, pressing his clothed chest against a back that radiated heat. He kissed the Raven Prince’s shoulder, caressed him with the flogger, gripped his slender, strong cock and pumped his hand back and forth several times, felt the Raven Prince shaking slightly.

‘More?’ Augus said. ‘Because there can be more.’

A wet sound as the Raven Prince moved his mouth. And Augus wanted to very much catch his eye, but focused instead on licking soothing patterns over inflamed skin.

‘Why do I like this?’ the Raven Prince said again, and Augus smiled, palmed the head of the Raven Prince’s cock and listened to the catch in his breathing.

‘My liege, are you ashamed? For you shouldn’t be.’

‘Not ashamed, only surprised,’ the Raven Prince said, his voice thicker than usual. ‘How do you do this? You have not a shred of magical aptitude in your body, and yet you turn these moments into such alchemy.’

Augus kissed the Raven Prince’s neck, nudging under hair and feathers to do so.

‘More,’ the Raven Prince said abruptly.

‘This _will_ hurt,’ Augus said, speaking into the space underneath the Raven Prince’s jaw. ‘Some words of warning. If a strike hurts too much, do not try to grab at the flogger, or twist to change position. Tell me with words that you want me to stop, do you understand?’

Rules that likely weren’t strictly necessary, but Augus was used to working with underfae clients – fae who could be seriously injured if they turned to escape and Augus didn’t pull back in time. The Raven Prince nodded, his breathing coming faster. Augus was still working his cock, felt a smear of precome against his palm and scraped his teeth over the Raven Prince’s shoulder – doing the same to his neck would be a sign of disrespect, and he couldn’t make himself, even as he wanted to.

‘I understand,’ the Raven Prince said, and Augus let go of his cock and palmed his hip instead, stroking him soothingly.

He stepped back, and the Raven Prince shifted his stance just slightly, bracing his feet better against the ground.

Augus didn’t start with the harder strikes straight away, moving back to the lighter ones for a little while. But he increased the strength of the blows faster this time, so that it was only a matter of minutes before he was striking harder than before, the Raven Prince jolting where his forehead rested against his forearm.

Augus calculated the placement of each strike carefully. Across the shoulders or ass whenever the Raven Prince showed signs of tensing too much, and then back across the thighs when he was complacent. He consumed every sound the Raven Prince made. When the Raven Prince cried out, voice shaking, as Augus laid five fast, heavy strikes against the underside of his ass, the tails curling around his thigh, Augus flushed with warmth.

After that, he knew it wouldn’t take long. Could scent the Raven Prince’s arousal in the air, thick and heavy. There was a particularly satisfying moment when Augus struck hard enough to break the skin – just slightly – and the Raven Prince’s voice broke, sounded thicker than before.

He wanted dearly to taunt, to ask if the Raven Prince’s eyes were wet, if the pain was too much, but the Raven Prince was his King and he dared not. He kept the words buried deep, along with his fears, and focused on the Raven Prince’s pleasure and, indirectly, his own.

The Raven Prince bore the pain well. Even biting out sounds as he was, his fingernails scraping over the wall and trembling. Augus mentally made a tally of how many more strikes he would administer, sensing that it was close to finishing up. The Raven Prince would not take much more willingly, and Augus did not want to reach the point where he had to be told to stop.

Fifteen more strikes, tiny beads of blood welling up – smearing if Augus struck the same place again – but not enough to truly lacerate. He finished on the Raven Prince’s ass and thighs, listening to rough breathing beneath each strike, his arm warm from the work of it.

As the Raven Prince’s body tensed for the next blow, Augus tossed the flogger onto the bed and pressed the length of his body to the Raven Prince’s back, causing the Raven Prince to hiss from overstimulation, pain, pleasure. Augus lightly bit at skin, his own inner predator swimming closer to the surface as he pinned one of his Prince’s hands to the wall and with the other, gripped the Raven Prince’s cock once more – heavy, hot, slick at the tip.

He worked the Raven Prince smoothly, feeling tremors in the Raven Prince’s arms, the way his hand was rigid against his. He kept the roughness of his pants, the hard buttons of his shirt up against the heat of the Raven Prince’s body, aggravating, restimulating. He licked his lips with hunger.

The Raven Prince tensed, panted roughly as he was worked to his release. When he spasmed in Augus’ fingers, seed spilling onto the wall, onto the floor beneath them, onto Augus’ fingers, he kept his cheek pressed against the wall, face turned away from Augus’.

A space of breaths between them as the Raven Prince came down from the rush of it, and Augus knew the pain would truly be settling in now. He bit his lip, forced himself to ignore his erection – he could deal with that later.

‘Come here, Your Majesty,’ Augus said quietly, curling his fingers carefully around the Raven Prince’s hand and prising it away from the wall. ‘Come here and lie down for me, so that I might soothe your back.’

The Raven Prince turned slowly, clearly monitoring his own body for shakiness even as Augus stayed pressed close to him, ready to catch him in case he stumbled. Augus wasn’t sure how much time had passed since they’d started, but he knew from the heat radiating from the Raven Prince’s back, the faint disorientation that the Raven Prince seemed to have, that he’d pushed hard.

‘How do you feel?’ Augus said, walking him to the bed. The Raven Prince was steady on his feet, but every step was slow and carefully placed.

‘Ask me again in a few minutes,’ the Raven Prince said, and Augus nodded, encouraging the Raven Prince to lay on his front. He caught a glimpse of his face. Two high spots of red on his cheeks, his lips swollen as though he’d been biting them or running his teeth over them, and his eyes remarkably bright. Augus could smell the salt of shed tears, even though he could see none on the Raven Prince’s face. His own cock ached in the confines of his pants.

‘Wait there,’ Augus said, moving off into his bathroom and collecting the salves he’d fetched from his underwater home specifically for this occasion. He wet a flannel, fetched a basin of water, decided he wouldn’t need anything else. He returned, the Raven Prince resting his head in a pillow of his own forearms, sweat and tiny smears of blood on his back, ass and thighs, even though his skin had already knit together.

Augus cleaned the Raven Prince’s skin carefully, each stroke of the cloth aggravating inflammation even as it soothed. The Raven Prince made faint noises of discontent, and Augus stroked his side carefully with his other hand to ground him, to offer something pleasurable.

When he was satisfied, could no longer see any blood at all, he opened one of the salves and began immediately on the Raven Prince’s thighs, where the worst of the pain likely lingered. At that, the Raven Prince sighed, he sank deeper into the bed, and Augus noted his breathing came much easier.

‘I’m tired,’ the Raven Prince said. ‘But then I am so often tired, no matter how often or well I sleep.’

Augus’ brow furrowed, he frowned.

‘So troubled, my Prince,’ Augus said.

‘I think I want to experience this again,’ the Raven Prince said, something of lazy wonder in his voice, as Augus tended to the curve of his ass and moved to his lower back, each stroke of salve sinking into skin, turning the heat of inflammation into something cooler. If the Raven Prince was Augus’ client, if Augus had more time at his leisure to explore, he would drag claws down the Raven Prince’s back to aggravate all of that pain, make him writhe on the bed beneath him.

_Perhaps next time._

As he smoothed salve over the Raven Prince’s shoulders, he abruptly remembered how hard it was to reach around and tend the deeper lacerations that the Raven Prince had left in a fit of violence on Augus’ skin.

His fingers fumbled, and he stopped moving, staring down at the Raven Prince beneath him. He swallowed once, desire vanishing, even as he forced his fingers to move once more.

If the Raven Prince noticed – and he rarely missed a thing – he said nothing about it. Augus was grateful. He didn’t want to discuss it. Wished to keep more uncomfortable thoughts away, even as his chest ached, as his eyes closed to the pain of it.

The salve worked so quickly, that by the time Augus had finished on the Raven Prince’s shoulders, he could take the flannel up in his hand and wipe any excess residue away from the back of the Raven Prince’s thighs. The Raven Prince’s skin was less warm now, returning to normal. Augus finished up some minutes later, placing his palm flat against the Raven Prince’s shoulder before standing and moving everything back into his bathroom.

When he returned, the Raven Prince had shifted onto his side, watching Augus with something unreadable in his gaze. Augus picked up the Raven Prince’s clothing where it lay on the floor and folded the pants carefully, laying them on the bed. He took the Raven Prince’s shirt and placed it on the bed. Then he looked at the stain of the Raven Prince’s release on the wall and smiled fondly, not caring that he’d have to clean that up later.

‘That is quite a gift you have,’ the Raven Prince said, watching him all the while.

‘What is that, my Prince?’

‘That you can be so careful, so gentle, after the covenant of trust between us has been broken by me. Do you know, I rather thought you would be the first to break it.’

Augus nodded, picked up the flogger where it sprawled on the corner of the bed and returned it to its drawer. Later, he would take it to his lake, where he would lay it up on a warmed rock, spread the tails, and let the sun cleanse it, so that he might use it again in the future.

‘I almost expected you to unleash your rage upon me, but even when you struck hard, you were masterful with it.’

‘It’s my job to care for your boundaries,’ Augus said, repeating the words the Raven Prince had said to him, something cold forming in his gut.

The Raven Prince blinked at him, and then turned onto his front once more, resting his head on his forearms.

‘Yes,’ the Raven Prince said, something almost melancholy in his voice. Augus couldn’t bring himself to inquire further.

‘I should leave you to rest,’ Augus said, looking around his room, the way the Raven Prince adorned it. ‘Do you need anything else?’

‘No,’ the Raven Prince said, shifting to become more comfortable. ‘You may return in an hour or so.’

‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ Augus said, walking towards the door of his own room.

‘And Augus?’ the Raven Prince called, and Augus’ stopped, his hand on the cold, metal door knob.

‘Yes?’

‘ _Gramercie.’_

‘It was my pleasure, my Prince,’ Augus said quietly, and opened the door, exiting the room.

He started to walk down the dark corridor, lit by torches that flickered with the endless brightness of werelight. Abruptly, he stopped, leaned with his back to the wall and sagged, staring up at the stone ceiling, his heart lurching in his chest.

His Prince, unhappy. Augus, hating the Court and chafing against a world he’d woven for himself. He closed his eyes, pressing a hand to his face. He wanted to escape. Wanted to offer succour to his Prince. Wanted disparate things that no longer gelled together properly in his head, different plans jarring against one another.

But eventually he pulled himself together, forced his breathing to evenness, stood straight once more.

He walked down the corridor towards one of the libraries, and didn’t look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Mae’n teimlo’n dda_ – It feels good.


End file.
